Water sports, such as canoeing, kayaking and rafting, may traditionally be practiced in natural rivers that may be equipped to define a specific course in the natural bed of the river. This requires little equipment, but the location is, by necessity, determined by the geographic situation of the river.
Alternatively, artificial rivers have been produced by deviating a portion of the flow of a river into an artificial canal, or achieved by pumping water into a pool. For example, whitewater stadia have been created in sites dedicated to the Olympic Games. In this case, the river beds were constructed of poured concrete, on embankments of appropriate shape, and the result is a very high cost of production and installation. Very little use is subsequently made of these whitewater stadia, so that the very high expense involved is generally considered excessive.
Moreover, EP document 0 569 499 B1 has already described a process and device for laying out a whitewater aquatic trail, consisting of providing, in the riverbed, holes that discharge out onto the upper surface of the bed, and placing, in the riverbed, components of obstacles, each of which has one part of an obstacle element and a mounting shaft that penetrates into one of the holes.
However, up to now, with currently known artificial rivers or whitewater stadia, the infrastructure made to support them cannot subsequently be removed, and its production cost is very high.
The problem proposed by the present invention is to design a means that makes it possible to significantly reduce the production and installation costs of a whitewater water course, and to simultaneously make it possible to dismantle the whitewater water course, transport it to another site, and assemble it for subsequent use at another site.
Another purpose of the invention is to make it possible to easily modify the shape of the riverbed and obstacles.
To achieve these goals and others, the invention proposes a whitewater water course, consisting of a riverbed that is capable of guiding a flow of water between an upper bed inlet and a lower bed outlet, and consisting of a means of water supply for introducing the flow of water into the upper bed inlet;